In spring of 2009, special education teacher Anthony Mullen -- former New York City police officer -- was named the 59th National Teacher of the Year. For the past seven years, Mullen has taught at an alternative high school in Connecticut, where he works with students who are often on their last academic stop.
As NTOY, Mullen will be on leave from his classroom for the academic year. He will travel the country, speaking to educators and reformers about what he sees as the greatest threat to American education: this country’s high dropout rate. Mullen's opinion blog will discuss his experiences in this space.

Piranhas on the Prairie

The large piranha swam back and forth until the tapping of my right index finger caught his attention. The fish turned ninety degrees and looked directly at my hand. The fish was the size of a small football and obviously well-fed, but it displayed a set of jagged teeth eager to keep busy.

"He's been with us since 1989," the hotel clerk remarked. "I can't begin to tell you how many people never get to see a real piranha until they visit South Dakota."

I think she noticed me tapping on the glass. I feel like an idiot.

"It's the first piranha I've ever seen." I replied.

A group of small orange and gold fish is huddled near the bottom of the tank, trying to stay motionless.

"Why are these fish still alive?" I ask.

The clerk shrugs her shoulders. "That piranha picks his victims; I don't know why some fish are eaten and others spared. I suppose the fish on the bottom are the lucky ones."

I suppose so, although I am not sure if lucky is the right word. The cluster of small fish appears anything but fortunate and is defenseless against the capricious carnivore. One of the fish leaves the huddle and, quite inexplicably, swims toward the piranha. The small fish stops in front of the piranha's mouth and is quickly consumed.

"Did you just arrive in Pierre?" she asked.

I walk away from the large fish tank and talk about my trek to Pierre. The capital of South Dakota is not a major airline destination, so I needed to make connecting flights in Minneapolis, Lincoln, and Watertown. Horace Greely never envisioned the challenge of trying to coordinate so many flights when he advised young men to Go West.

The receptionist listened politely and then inquired if I was staying at the hotel to attend the teachers' conference or the meeting of high school wrestling coaches.

"I'm with the teacher group," I answered.

I was scheduled to address the South Dakota Governor's Teacher Leadership Conference the following morning. The hotel was also hosting a meeting of high school wrestling coaches. Wrestling is a popular sport in South Dakota, a piece of information that makes sense considering the state's history. Back in the 1760s tribes that would later form the Sioux Nation wrestled the land from the indigenous Arikara; in the 1860s troops of volunteer cavalry and a number of militia units wrestled the land from the Sioux. Hardy ranchers and farmers ultimately wrestled the land away from French and Canadian fur trappers, although the trappers did not put up much of a fight because they no longer had any Indian trading partners.

A young teacher walks by and stops abruptly. "I recognized your face from a picture of you in the conference room," she said in a cheerful voice. "I'm glad that you will be speaking about troubled teenagers; we have our fair share of problems right here in Pierre."

Pierre does not appear to be a city affected by anything other than cold winters and hot summers. The high school graduation rate is among the highest in the nation, people still keep their doors unlocked at night, and the local dairy Queen is free of graffiti. The prairie has an eerie silence but that's better than the staccato of drive-by shootings or the incessant sound of police sirens.

"What kind of problems?" I ask.

The teacher looks around to make sure others are not listening. "About ten years ago we were known as the "Suicide City."

"Suicide City?"

The teacher informed me that in the late 1990s Pierre was wrenched by a series of suicides, most of them teenagers. Eleven people from 13 to 23 years old took their own lives during a three year period. A rate about 13 times the national rate of teenage suicide.

"Why did so many young people commit suicide?" I asked.

"Nobody had a good explanation for the suicides," the teacher remarked. "It's as though something insidious crept into the town and took away the lives of these young people."

Suicide has always defied a good explanation because it's hard to rationalize a seemingly irrational act, and the teacher made an acute observation about "something insidious" that moved stealthily through the town. A phenomenon known as "cluster suicides" appears to target teenagers. This is when the disease acts more like a contagion and creates "hot spots" in certain areas. Pierre was one such hot spot in 1998.

I begin to recall some of the teenage suicide notes I read while working for the NYPD. Teenagers commit suicide for many of the same reasons adults kill themselves, but divorce of parents, inability to find success at school, feelings of worthlessness, rejection by friends or classmates, death of someone close to the teenager, or the suicide of a friend are reasons frequently scribbled on paper or napkins.

But it's very rare that a person, young or old, dies by suicide because of one cause. The act is triggered by several negative life experiences and mental health professionals agree that over 90 percent of people who die by suicide have a mental illness at the time of their death. And the most common mental illness is depression.

Teenage suicide is not a topic openly discussed in many schools. It should be.

Fourteen teenagers commit suicide every day and twenty-five others give it a try. We need to do a better job identifying high risk students and providing more mental health services in our schools. Parents, teachers, family and friends must pay close attention to some of the most common teen suicide warning signs:

Fat, old, piranhas on the prairie is a priceless image of a schoolroom. Being trapped nowhere is, in many, many ways much more threatening than being trapped in an urban classroom, an urban ghetto, a dead end city life. Here in the city, we are a nation of emigres from the prairies of country, suburb, nations of violence, war and despair. "Your tired and poor" have a kind of gritty vitality our kindred country cousins often lack. What a lovely memorial and wistful context!

I grew up in Pierre and had classmates whose younger siblings were part of the rash of suicides that swept the town. I never felt that despair myself, but I also "escaped" to an out of state college and then bigger, more diverse cities. I am now back in a small town, although not in SD, and I can tell you that coping with alienation and depression and "other-ness" in a small town is so much worse than in the city -- there is no escape from the microscope in a sense...people you know are always watching and judging. If you didn't fit in in elementary school, you will likely not fit in the rest of your life. As my friends who left as I did describe, we miss the landscape but not the experience.

Thank you for your poignant comment. It' nice to read about your experience and I agree with your thoughts about alienation and depression. I just wrote a blog called "One is the Loneliest Number" dealing with such an issue.